Going one better: RED editing and what Vegas 9 has under the hood

Feature: Page (2) of 2 - 05/31/09

Of course being able to work in 4k is only useful if you can output viable 4k formats particularly for potential transfer to high-end finishing or grading systems such as DaVinci. As such Vegas 9 introduces support for DPX and EXR image sequences at 4k resolutions. This certainly closes some of the gap that has existed for Vegas in being accepted as a viable system for high-end work.

What's particularly impressive about the way Vegas handles resolution is that you can change project settings at any time with no impact at all on your media. Unlike virtually all other NLE's the working space and the media on the timeline are totally independent and the engine is format agnostic. As such you can put your 4k on the timeline, set your project space to something much smaller, like 720HD, cut away in superb real-time with Vegas decoding the 4k to the smaller 720 preview for efficiency. Then when you're ready to finish you simply change the project settings back to 4k. Likewise you can at any time swap project settings back and forth between 4k, 2k, SD and HD to see how your film looks at different resolutions corresponding to output delivery. There's no rendering, no conform, no restart, no manipulation at all; just a real-time click of the mouse.

Introduced in the previous version 8 of Vegas was a 32-bit floating point processing engine and this functionality certainly comes into its own now that Vegas 9 can work with native 12-bit R3D files. When combined with the fact that Vegas 9 is available in a native 64-bit version for 64-bit operating systems and comes with its own, very effective, network render farm tools, the door is opened for Vegas 9 to run on very high end 8 core+ workstations ploughed full of RAM and mass rendering across a network of PC's. Although I was unable to test Vegas 9 on such a high-end or networked system, the excellent performance garnered on a simple Quad-core PC bodes very well for Vegas' functionality, particularly on long form projects.

However, superior system efficiency and performance aside, to this point Vegas 9 hasn't delivered the big point-of-difference with its nearest competitor, Premiere Pro CS4. But that killer blow comes with Vegas 9 solidly delivering the piece of the RED puzzle that seems to have eluded everyone else. Vegas 9 can access and manipulate all the RED metadata internally within the NLE interface.

Multi-channel audio

The process is amazingly logical, you simply import the R3D files into the project window, right+click on a file and select the properties. This launches a window which contains all the RED color profile look settings as a 1-1 match to the RED camera and as they are in REDAlert. You can set ISO, colour temperature, exposure, gamma and colour space, exercise fine control over custom curve settings and adjust de-noising filters. All these controls manipulate the metadata of the native R3D files, just as REDAlert and REDCine do, in a completely non-destructive way. For added functionality you can perform these adjustments at any time on any individual clip or group of select clips to bulk process. The results are instantaneous.

In this fell swoop Vegas has eliminated the need for using a separate one-light process and delivers a totally integrated RED RAW post solution where it's quite possible to import, one-light, edit, color grade and deliver in native 4k without ever leaving the Vegas interface.

There are three smallish criticisms I would raise in regard to how RAW metadata is handled in Vegas 9. The first is that the custom Curves controls are presented as sliders for X and Y coordinates rather than as an actual malleable curve graph. While certainly functional, a graph display would be easier to use and we hope that Vegas may provide such a view in future release.

The second is that in order to see a live preview of the RAW metadata changes in real-time as you make them the clip being adjusted needs to be placed on the timeline and displaying in the Vegas preview window. This means that any changes to clips not yet added to the timeline are done blind. It's no great deal to add all the clips to the timeline and batch adjust with a live preview, then remove them from the timeline and begin the edit, but it is a bit clumsy.

The third small problem (that, if addressed, would expedite the issue above) is that while you can apply metadata color changes to multiple clips in one go (and even be selective about the changes; being specific to some clips while making macro changes to all), there doesn't seem to be a way to copy the look from one clip to another or to save a custom look to be applied later to other clips.

To this end the RAW functionality of Vegas does feel a little 'early days' with some enhancements, hopefully, still to come. But there's no doubt that these small hurdles still make the Vegas RED workflow significantly more efficient than that offered by Sony's competitors. Premiere Pro for example insists that you close and restart the application whenever you make changes to the decoding resolution of the RAW files.

As with any new software tool and workflow, the true test will be in the pressure cooker of real-world production. Small scale testing so far of the way Vegas 9 handles R3D is extremely promising. I've noticed no real issues with accuracy or representation of the metadata or conforming to correct gamma or color space. There have been some reports that there can be a color shift in how Vegas displays the R3D as opposed to REDCine and REDAlert.
In testing a selection of RED clips shot interior and exterior I haven't noticed any significant shift but more rigorous testing across various lighting and metadata settings would be needed to be conclusive.

Vegas is certainly a very stable system but there is of course a large difference between the ability to consistently export out a HD short film and the handling and exporting out a full 4k DPX file sequence of a feature film. Time will tell if Vegas 9 is ready to handle large scale long-form projects on RED.

Not everyone will be so enamoured by a singular application on-line workflow for 4k. There are still those who argue passionately for on-line/off-line process -- not necessarily for technical reasons of performance but rather for editorial reasons of process and rigor. Similarly if the project demands multiple editors and extensive effects shots processed in multiple external applications, this may limit the appeal of the Vegas approach. Sony doesn't have the integrated suite on offer that Adobe has excelled with in recent years.

But, certainly for this immediate point in time, it's very difficult not to see Vegas 9 as, frankly, the most simply effective RED editing solution currently on the market for small to moderate sized projects. Fast, efficient, flexible and totally unified into a single piece of software that costs less than $1000. Time will tell if Vegas handles longer projects just as well but if ever there was a time for FCP, Avid and Premiere editors and independent filmmakers to sit up and take notice of Vegas, it's now.

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Mike Jones is a digital media producer, author, educator from Sydney, Australia. He has a diverse background across all areas of media production including film, video, TV, journalism, photography, music and on-line projects. Mike is the author of three books and more than 200 published essays, articles and reviews covering all aspects of cinematic form, technology and culture. Mike is currently Head of Technological Arts at the International Film School Sydney (www.ifss.edu.au), has an online home at www.mikejones.net and can be found profusely blogging for DMN at www.digitalbasin.net

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